Manfred Hebenstreit

The exhibition "Corpus Callosum" featuring works by the Austrian Painter, Manfred Hebenstreit, brings together over 120 works created between 1985 till 2003. The baroque splendour of the Palais Harrach is the setting for a selection of works on canvas and wood, for watercolours and prints, as well as for objects created during the last few years in connection with the glass paintings made at the Cistercian monastery of Schlierbach. Hebenstreit lives and works at Peuerbach in Upper Austria.

Manfred Hebensteit has been active as an artist for about two decades. After studying at the University of Art at Linz, he had his first public exhibitions in the early 1980´s in Graz, Salzburg and Vienna.

"Corpus Callosum", the title of the show, is the biological term for the broad bundle of nerve fibres that connects the two halves of the brain and is thus able to achieve a synthesis between logical thinking and intuitive feeling. These two opposing poles also typify Hebensteit´s art: it is characterised by a mixture of carefully thought-out composition and impulsive gesture.

The exhibition has three sections. The first includes pictorial series from Siena, California, Brittany, Spain, and Croatia. In these the artist transposed personal impressions gained during his travels. The second section - entitled "Depth" - focusses on paintings executed in May 2003 in a newly-discovered Temple of Venus beneath a Renaissance building in the city of Krk. The thrird section of this temporary exhibit includes glass objects and is entitled "Desverres": using a new technique of melting and fusing the material, they were created in the workshops of the monastery of Schlierbach and are on show to the public for the first time in this exhibition.

A quote on Martin Hebenstreit´s most recent works:
"Hebenstreit´s new work in glass is the logical consequence of the growing importance of light in his painting. As in his earlier work, he uses the new medium to try to capture space in its nuances of light and colour. Martin Hebensteit is an outstanding artist because he is able, despite his spontaneity, to appreciate and cleverly employ calculation, who accepts the challenge posed by the technical difficulties of melting and firing glass, who in his most recent works carefully weighs up composition and surprise, almost as a technical counterpart to the balance that his works express".
Dr. Johannes Jetschgo, ORF